Morado gets back to his best distance
ETOBICOKE, Ontario - Morado will be the only runner to compete without a selling price in Wednesday's Woodbine headliner, a $66,800 allowance optional claimer at seven furlongs. And that certainly counts for something.
Morado has posted three wins in nine outings this year. He was claimed from his current connections, Jim Dandy Stable and trainer Sid Attard, when he won his maiden comfortably for $40,000 in early August, but they promptly took him back from a $62,500 victory Aug. 20.
Morado captured a seven-furlong preliminary allowance, which was taken off the grass,
Sept. 25. He made each of his last two starts at this level, running for the $62,500 claiming price, and finished third at six furlongs and fourth at 1 1/16 miles, both under apprentice Emma Wilson.
Attard said he felt Morado wanted little part of a route of ground. "I think a mile and a sixteenth is too far for him," Attard said. "Seven-eighths is his best distance."
Morado raced without blinkers for the first time most recently, but Attard is putting them back on for Wednesday's engagement.
"We took the blinkers off to stretch him out, and [Wilson] said to me that he wouldn't leave the horse beside him," said Attard. "He was just looking at him the whole time."
Wilson, who won three races last Sunday, is 21 for 84 at the meeting when riding for Attard.
The other contenders in the feature are Shaws Creek and Silver Gun.
Shaws Creek, a classy 6-year-old with $545,992 in earnings, has a storied history. He won the Clarendon Stakes at 2 and was a serious Queen's Plate prospect at 3, when he landed the Plate Trial and Queenston Stakes.
Shaws Creek has been campaigned sporadically in recent years. He ended a 10-race losing streak when he won an optional claimer in November 2004, then went unraced until this September. He won his third race off the layoff on Nov. 20, in a difficult $40,000 claimer. Garry Cruise will ride Shaws Creek for trainer John Ross.
Silver Gun is moving up sharply in value off a hard-fought score in a quick $25,000 contest at seven furlongs and will make his debut off a claim by trainer Ralph Biamonte. Silver Gun displayed good turf form early in the fall and was good enough to capture an entry-level allowance on the grass in July.
Corey Fraser, who inherits the mount on Silver Gun, has ridden five of Biamonte's seven winners at the meeting.
Rounding out the field are Fort Erie shipper Disbelief, West Beware, and Open Lock.